Nano-Cathodoluminescence Measurement of Asymmetric Carrier Trapping and Radiative Recombination in GaN and InGaN Quantum Disks.

The ability to characterize recombination and carrier trapping processes in group-III nitride-based nanowires is vital to further improvements in their overall efficiencies. While advances in scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM)-based cathodoluminescence (CL) have offered some insight into nanowire behavior, inconsistencies in nanowire emission along with CL detector limitations have resulted in the incomplete understanding in nanowire emission processes. Here, two nanowire heterostructures were explored with STEM-CL: a polarization-graded AlGaN nanowire light-emitting diode (LED) with a GaN quantum disk and a polarization-graded AlGaN nanowire with three different InGaN quantum disks. Most nanowires explored in this study did not emit. For the wires that did emit in both structures, they exhibited asymmetrical emission consistent with the polarization-induced electric fields in the barrier regions of the nano-LEDs. In the AlGaN/InGaN sample, two of the quantum disks exhibited no emission potentially due to the three-dimensional landscape of the sample or due to limitations in the CL detection.

Optical control of internal electric fields in band gap-graded InGaN nanowires.

InGaN nanowires are suitable building blocks for many future optoelectronic devices. We show that a linear grading of the indium content along the nanowire axis from GaN to InN introduces an internal electric field evoking a photocurrent. Consistent with quantitative band structure simulations we observe a sign change in the measured photocurrent as a function of photon flux. This negative differential photocurrent opens the path to a new type of nanowire-based photodetector. We demonstrate that the photocurrent response of the nanowires is as fast as 1.5 ps.

Semiconductor Nanowire Light-Emitting Diodes Grown on Metal: A Direction Toward Large-Scale Fabrication of Nanowire Devices.

Bottom-up nanowires are attractive for realizing semiconductor devices with extreme heterostructures because strain relaxation through the nanowire sidewalls allows the combination of highly lattice mismatched materials without creating dislocations. The resulting nanowires are used to fabricate light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, solar cells, and sensors. However, expensive single crystalline substrates are commonly used as substrates for nanowire heterostructures as well as for epitaxial devices, which limits the manufacturability of nanowire devices. Here, nanowire LEDs directly grown and electrically integrated on metal are demonstrated. Optical and structural measurements reveal high-quality, vertically aligned GaN nanowires on molybdenum and titanium films. Transmission electron microscopy confirms the composition variation in the polarization-graded AlGaN nanowire LEDs. Blue to green electroluminescence is observed from InGaN quantum well active regions, while GaN active regions exhibit ultraviolet emission. These results demonstrate a pathway for large-scale fabrication of solid state lighting and optoelectronics on metal foils or sheets.

Ultrathin GaN quantum disk nanowire LEDs with sub-250 nm electroluminescence.

By quantum confining GaN at monolayer thickness with AlN barriers inside of a nanowire, deep ultraviolet LEDs are demonstrated. Full three-dimensional strain dependent energy band simulations are carried out within multiple quantum disk (MQD) GaN/AlN nanowire superlattice heterostructures. It is found that, even within the same nanowire MQD, the emission energy of the ultrathin GaN QDs varies from disk to disk due to the changing strain distribution and polarization charge induced energy band bending along the axial nanowire direction. MQD heterostructures are grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy to form self-assembled catalyst-free nanowires with 1 to 2 monolayer thick GaN insertions within an AlN matrix. Photoluminescence peaks are observed at 295 nm and 283 nm from the 2 ML and 1 ML thick MQD samples, respectively. Polarization-doped nanowire LEDs are grown incorporating 1 ML thick GaN MQD active regions from which we observe deep ultraviolet electroluminescence. The shortest LED wavelength peak observed is 240 nm and attributed to electron hole recombination within 1 ML thick GaN QDs.